Mary Tyler Moore Threw Tantrum After Reading Script for Classic ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ Episode
Mary Tyler Moore acknowledges that Dick Van Dyke Show creator and writer Carl Reiner had a tough job on his hands. The hit sitcom had several main characters, including Rob and Laura Petrie, their son Ritchie, and Rob’s co-workers Sally and Buddy. Then there was producer Mel Cooley, star Alan Brady and neighbors Jerry and Millie Helper. Reiner had a lot of mouths to feed, or at least mouths to provide lines for.
“Each member of the cast must be featured from time to time,” Moore wrote in her autobiography, After All. “The actor’s ego demands it. It keeps peace on the set, too.”
Luckily for Moore, Reiner hinted that he was cooking up a hilarious script that spotlighted her character, Laura Petrie. He wasn’t spilling any details, other than she’d be the focal point of a story that would be “the fulfillment of several of the writers’ fantasies.” (Cue the warning light.) Reiner said the idea was so special that he was keeping it secret until it was time to read it aloud. “I could hardly wait!” wrote Moore.
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Three weeks later, Reiner finally gave the cast a script for the episode, “Never Bathe on Saturday.” Unfortunately for Moore, “my hopes were dashed.” While the episode revolved around Laura, she was off-camera for almost the entire show, hidden by a bathroom door with her big toe stuck in a bathtub faucet. The script was a physical comedy tour de force for Van Dyke, as Rob tried a number of crazy methods to break down the bathroom door. Meanwhile, Laura — presumably nude in the tub — was unseen on the other side.
Reiner knew Moore was disappointed. In his book, Why and When The Dick Van Dyke Show Was Born, he recalled Moore complaining that she felt like she was on a radio show while the rest of the cast was doing television.
It was a bad week for Moore to quit smoking, but that’s just what she had done. “She was white as a sheet, shaking and nervous — like anyone going through nicotine withdrawal,” remembered Van Dyke in his memoir, My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business. “She was on edge, a rarity for Mary. At one point she even had kind of a tiff.”
Kind of a tiff? Van Dyke was being kind. Moore confessed that she left the set, “stomped into my canvas dressing room and slammed its fabric door.” Van Dyke’s assistant quietly tapped on the door and offered her a brandy. Even though it was still morning, Moore downed it.
Reiner may or may not have helped the situation when he told her, “Mary, if I had a camera on you, all we could shoot was close-ups of your head and shoulders. By not seeing you, I have given the men in our audience the pleasure of imagining your lovely, naked body soaking in the tub.”
Moore eventually returned to the set, still sulking. She eventually got over her anger to film the episode, one that industry pros and fans alike held up as one of Laura’s most memorable. As a thank you to Reiner, she found a brass faucet at an antique shop and mounted it on a plaque with an engraved inscription. “If you want to know what it says,” Moore teased, “you will will have to contact Carl.”
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